It’s all in your hands, Shaun

ONE PERSON is having an uneasy weekend. He promised to do the right thing when he was appointed and he vowed to obey court rulings and the country’s laws. As of yesterday, Shaun Abrahams, our maligned national director of public prosecutions (NDPP), better known to his critics as Shaun of The Dead or Shaun The Sheep, has little wiggle room left.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed President Jacob Zuma and the National Prosecuting Authority’s appeal in the spy tapes case. It follows last year’s Pretoria high court ruling that the NPA should not have withdrawn the 783 counts of corruption against the president arising from the conviction of his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik. This after revelations that the head of the disbanded Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy, and the then-NDPP, Bulelani Ngcuka, had schemed about when to charge Zuma.

The president wishes to have his day in court to clear his name as his legal team rack up legal bills – paid by us – as they pursue a uniquely South African legal tactic: the Stalingrad defence, thwarting every possible conclusion to what is an open-and-shut case.

Abrahams holds it within his hands to bring the farce to an end and give the president his wish. We hope he will correct the impression both courts have given us about the dysfunction in the critical office he manages.

The NPA’s mission is to ensure justice for all by prosecuting without fear, favour or prejudice. Abrahams has an opportunity to draw a line in the sand to deter all the other cancers that have run amok in our society since, that we call state capture. The attacks on our national body are only possible when our immune system has been as compromised as it is.